Admonishments
by kat620
Summary: Finn and Rachel don't always agree. Set mostly in the future after the first chapter.
1. Chapter 1

"This will never work." Rachel moans after two hours of rehearsing "Don't Stop Believing" with Finn, Mercedes, Kurt, Tina, Artie and his friends from the jazz band. Who would want to listen to _Journey_? Sure, they've had a few hits but their best days are long behind them. Show tunes are much more appropriate for this setting. And with Mr. Shuester gone, it's next to impossible to coordinate the choreography. How is she supposed to perform the dance steps, avoid Finn's giant feet, and observe the others to make sure they're doing it right? It simply can't be done. At this point, she's starting to think that they should just have just disbanded the glee club when they had the chance. That way, she'd be free to cultivate her talent elsewhere. Somewhere with people who encouraged her to grow as a performer rather than a group of misfits who, although she could see glimmers of talent in all of them, mostly served to hold her back. "What are you talking about? We're gonna be awesome!" Finn gushes with an exuberance that seemed unnatural to Rachel given the amount of time they had just spent trying to get their choreography down. She just doesn't understand Journey and their music, he tells himself. He'll make her appreciate them someday. But first, he has to get the glee club back on track. They need Mr. Shuester back and he's pretty sure they'll need more members if they want to compete at sectionals. And it's up to him to get all these important people. It's the least he can do after abandoning them when they needed him the most.

"Did you know that Jacob Israel is saying that he has a pair of your panties?" Finn asks Rachel in a hushed voice. "Shh. Yes, I know. Don't talk about it." She commands, glancing around the classroom for possible eavesdroppers. When he asks why she would allow this, she gives him a glare that would kill if that were possible, but decides to explain anyway. Well, she could at least give him the same whitewashed version of the truth that she was sharing with everyone else: she did it to protect Quinn's right to privacy. No one should know about her pregnancy until she chooses to disclose it. Of course, all of this was true. However, she didn't really care that much about Quinn's rights. Rachel's rights had been violated by Quinn more times than she could count at the hands of Quinn Fabray in the form of merciless mocking and destruction of personal property. In Rachel's eyes, Quinn deserved whatever karma had in store for her. Rachel's real reasons for presenting Ben with a new pair of way too big panties would have to remain a secret. No one could know that she was harboring feelings for Finn Hudson, not when his girlfriend was carrying his child. If Quinn wasn't pregnant, maybe letting him know wouldn't be such a bad thing. If he had to choose between only herself and Quinn, she might be willing to risk it. But in this world, Finn was going to be a father and Rachel is going to do everything she could to help him, and _her_ by association, bring this child into the world. It's what any good friend would do.

"The baby isn't yours." Rachel says hesitantly before watching all the color drain from Finn's face. "Why would you say something like that?" he asks angrily, quickly regaining said lost color and then some. She explains that she overheard the glee club talking about it. He says that they talk about all kinds of stuff but that doesn't make it true. Funny how shell-shocked Finn is more rational than regular Finn. Rachel resists the urge to roll her eyes but then remembers that he's upset so she simply reminds him that she knows better than to spread gossip. She's seen the looks that Quinn and Puck give each other and watched Puck remove his womanizing mask to reveal a young man who really seemed to care about Quinn and her baby. More than the best friend of the father should care if she wanted to be brutally honest. Throw in the glee club's gossip about Puck being the father and Rachel had enough of a reason to set the Jewish baby trap. When Finn asks what the hell a Jewish baby trap is and what it has to do with his and Quinn's white baby, she explains Tay Sachs and what it means for women pregnant with Jewish babies. She tells him that the explanation she just gave him is nearly identical to what she said to Quinn. If the baby really was Finn's, this information would have been wholly unnecessary and immediately disregarded by the other girl. Sadly, when Quinn demanded that Puck take her to get the baby tested, she fell right into Rachel's trap. Finally absorbing the information Rachel has just given him, Finn storms off toward the choir room to confront his two "best" friends about their mutual betrayal.

"I want you back." Finn said when he realized just how stupid he was to think that he had to ditch Rachel in order to 'find his inner rock star.' If anything, he needed her to push him into becoming the performer he wants to be. Because that's what he really wants: to perform. That inner rock star nonsense was about something entirely different, and even though he had only spent a week living that life, Finn knew that it did not appeal to him. Too many girls with not enough meaning. He needs meaning in his life and Rachel helps him find it. He just plain misses her. On some level, he actually likes her crazy ideas of what a relationship should be, complete with calendar. His life was more interesting with her around. "I can't believe you have the gall to say that." Rachel fumes as she turns around and walks away without another word. He has no right to say something like that to her after what he put her through. Unceremoniously dumping her because he was bored then parading all those girls in front of her is unacceptable in her book. And he knows that she's with Jesse now. She told him herself last time he said those words to her. What makes him think that she would leave an intelligent, talented man who understands her for a boy who thinks nothing of her heart and the ease with which he can break it? So she continues her march down the hallway toward the man who appreciates her, trying to suppress the fluttering in her stomach that's been making her nauseous since she first told Finn about her whirlwind romance with the hot star of Vocal Adrenaline.

"I'm going to have sex with Santana." Finn tells Rachel, hoping that this information- no, threat- will inspire her to break things off with Jesse and come back to him. Jealousy is a very powerful thing, after all. It's the only reason he even considered Santana's offer. It's not as if he'll actually go through with it. But as he watches Rachel's face fall from her usual smile to a look of complete astonishment, Finn begins to regret his statement. After a few moments of silence and staring at Rachel's stunned face, he turns and walks away, mentally kicking himself the whole way. Now that he's said it, he knows he has to go through with it. And now that he's seen Rachel's face, he knows that it's the last thing in the world he wants to do. As he turns a corner, Rachel whispers "Don't say that." What she really means is "Don't do it," but it doesn't matter because he's too far away to hear her. And too far gone to care. She's not even sure why he felt the need to tell her in the first place. It's not like they've been especially chummy since their breakup and her relationship with Jesse became a constant source of tension between them. And really, it's not her place to say anything to him. She lost any claim she had on him the moment she gave her heart to Jesse during their impromptu performance of "Hello." But as she makes her way out of the school and toward Jesse's waiting car, she can't help but feel as if they are both making huge mistakes.

"So is your boyfriend _still_ off with his Vocal Adrenaline friends? That looks pretty suspicious if you ask me." Finn comments after glee club practice the day he performs "Jesse's Girl" for the group. "I don't appreciate the insinuation that you're making. And I certainly didn't appreciate that song. I'm with Jesse now, and we're ridiculously happy, so please just back off." Rachel asked before another one of her patented storm-offs. Who was he to say something like that to her? Does he really think she hasn't considered the possibility that Jesse is still loyal to Vocal Adrenaline? Of course she has. And even if she hadn't thought of it on her own, Finn had already taken it upon himself several times to question Jesse's loyalty. But Rachel knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that their love is pure and that Jesse has no ulterior motives for pursuing a relationship with her. They are simply two people with a love and talent for the performing arts and who can appreciate each other for who they truly are. So Rachel tells herself that the reason Finn won't drop this ridiculous notion is that he has never had a relationship as strong as hers and Jesse's. The closest thing he'd ever had was when he was with her, and he obviously wasn't ready to accept himself, let alone Rachel with all her quirks. And to top it all off, he had the nerve to imply that he was more worthy of her love. In what universe does that make sense? He's already proven multiple times that that is not the case. Is a single song really supposed to convince her otherwise? Because it can't. She was flattered though, despite what she told Finn. She can never tell him that though, he might confuse it for another, more promising, emotion. And that would be wrong. Right?


	2. Chapter 2

Finn is the first person to find Rachel after the Vocal Adrenaline egg ambush. After cursing loudly and resisting the urge to drive to Carmel and throw something a little bit harder, like his fist, at that coward St. James, he takes Rachel to the football locker room to clean up. After checking that no one else is in the room, he locks the door and leads her to his locker. He pulls out the shorts, and t-shirt that he always keeps there for when he forgets to bring them one day and hands them to her with the promise that he won't look. The shirt looks like a tent hanging off her small frame, with the sleeves reaching her wrists, but at least it's clean. She tries to tie the shorts on in an acceptable manner, but they fall off even when tied tight, so she just wears the shirt. It covers more of her legs than her ruined skirt does anyway. After she's changed, Finn offers to help her rinse out her hair. So they pull a bench over to the sink and he tries to ask her what exactly happened. Instead, she laments the deaths of all those poor, innocent, baby chicks, and the only thing he can think of to comfort her is "They probably wanted to die after being touched by those slimeballs anyway." This hypothesis is met by a gasp, followed by "That's a horrible thing to say!" Secretly, though, she's grateful that Finn's the one that found her because she knows that, even after everything they've been through this semester, he'll always be there for her. And also because he's the only one that could be so vehemently angry at those monsters and still make her want to laugh in spite of herself.

Finn doesn't know how he and the rest of the glee club make it from the auditorium to their bus traveling toward home, but they do. He was understandably devastated by the results, but he still had hope. Those judges were crazy. Mr. Figgins couldn't possibly want to end the club after their performance. Surely Mr. Shue could convince him to give them another chance. Coach Sylvester was on the judging panel after all, and Figgins has to know by now that she's been out to get them all along. A small voice breaks his train of thought. "I failed." Rachel whispers. "What are you talking about? You were perfect today." Finn assures her. He tells her that they would've had it in the bag if it weren't for that witch and did she notice that cackle when she announced that the evil ones had won? So the rest of the bus ride is spent listening to Finn and Artie make jokes about how Coach Sylvester is secretly green and warty and uses Cheerios as test subjects for new spells, which explains why Santana is such a bitch and Brittany is so stupid. The former even chimes in with a joke about how Kurt was allowed on the squad under the condition that he be the first test subject for the anti-gay potion she's been perfecting. And it obviously wasn't perfect enough because it was clearly ineffective, despite Kurt's brief butch phase. This sends the entire group into howls of laughter until Brittany kills the joke when she asks if the coach is the real daddy of Quinn's baby. Somehow, Rachel knows that somehow, they're going to be okay.

As Finn waits for Rachel before their maybe-date the day after sectionals, he begins to wonder what the hell he's doing. He doesn't deserve her, he's already proven that. He's dumb and untalented, which was made perfectly clear the night before. She couldn't possibly want to be with him. That kiss in the stairwell was just a reaction to his emphatic plea to motivate the glee club and that smile when he told her he loved her had to be a holy-crap-why-did-he-say-that-I'm-just-going-to-smile smile. Right? He's still thinking about how he doesn't deserve her when she arrives at her front door, so he gives her a I'm-totally-freaking-out-but-I'm-really-happy-to-see-you-right-now smile. His act doesn't fool her though, so when they get seated at Breadsticks, she is quick to ask him what's wrong. "I don't deserve you," he says simply because he knows he'll never be enough to keep her happy. "You take that back this instant!" she demands. She hates hearing him talk like this, he's a great guy who deserves everything the world has to offer. Any girl would be lucky to have such a loyal boy, no, man, in her life. What she doesn't understand is why he seems to have chosen her. She's too dramatic and neurotic. And she's damaged goods, still reeling from her sham of a relationship with Jesse. Somewhere in that tirade, Finn realizes that the feeling of inferiority he's had is really just a drive to be better, instilled in him by the brilliant young woman sitting across the table from him. Seeking to remedy their current situation, he slides out of his side of the booth and into hers, breaking her long-winded speech with a kiss before she even thinks to ask what he's doing. Their embrace is broken only when their server arrives to ask what type of breadsticks they would like before their meal. Why that question even needed to be asked, they will never know, but after ordering bread sans garlic, they resume their previous activity.

Two days after their first date, Finn and Rachel are at the grocery store debating which type of ice cream to get. Rachel's vote is for the low-fat vanilla frozen yogurt. Finn, on the other hand wants the chocolate ice cream with chocolate syrup and chocolate chunks. As Rachel suggests that he buy a dark chocolate bar to melt and mix in with the yogurt, Shelby Corcoran turns the corner and catches her eye. Finn watches dumbfounded as Rachel stands frozen to her spot and Ms. Corcoran approaches them with baby Beth in tow. As mother and daughter make small talk, Finn contemplates the fact that he is now dating his almost-daughter's sort-of sister. And his ex-girlfriend is his new girlfriend's sister's mother. When he remembers Puck's role in this whole mess, Finn checks back into the conversation to hear Rachel congratulating her mother on her victory at Regionals and on her new baby. Ms. Corcoran politely thanks her and explains that Beth was just released from the hospital and she couldn't wait to get her home to Carmel. She doesn't mention anything about who Beth's biological parents are, that information is unnecessary and could only hurt the fragile girl in front of her. Rachel manages to keep her happy façade for the rest of the conversation, but crumbles as soon as the woman who never wanted to be her mother is out of earshot. "Why am I so completely unlovable?" she asks as Finn pulls her close and rubs her back. All she's ever wanted is to be wanted, yet here she was, spurned by her own mother, traded in for a newer model. "You're not unloveable. _I_ love you." Finn murmurs. Rachel thanks him, but tells him that it's not the same as she opens the freezer and takes out the triple-chocolate ice cream. She'll spend an extra hour on the treadmill tomorrow, this just became a chocolate kind of day.

Rachel finds Finn slumped against his locker on the last day of school. When she asks him why he's not jumping for joy at the prospect of an entire summer to themselves, he hands her his report card and says "I'm an idiot." As Rachel scans the paper, she sees a column mostly comprised of Cs with an F at the bottom next to the words 'World Geography.' When Rachel asks him what he's going to do about it in her important business voice, he tells her that he's going to have to retake the class in summer school, throwing in another comment about how stupid he is. "Don't say that." Rachel protests. She'll never understand how he can get so down on himself so quickly. Confidence has never really been his strong suit, but this is a new low for him. She's never seen him so down on himself, not even when he first joined glee club and found out about Quinn's pregnancy. The closest he's ever been to this level of self-loathing was right after the news of Quinn and Puck's affair broke, but he had been so angry with them at the time that he seemed to ignore his part in the equation. Of course he isn't stupid, the school setting is just not conducive to his learning style. She'll work with him this summer to find a study plan that works for him. Finn begrudgingly agrees to work with her, if only because it might be the only time they get to spend together this summer. Or maybe it's because he knows that at least some of her brilliance will have to rub off on her eventually.

Finn sneaks into Rachel's dressing room after Rachel's opening night performance in the Lima Community Theater production of _South Pacific_. She gives a soft shriek when he covers her eyes, but jumps into his arms for a kiss when she realizes that it's him and not one of those creepy stalkers that stars always have to worry about. "Wait, you can't be here." She says when he sets her down. This is a girl's dressing room and no one is allowed backstage unless they are part of the cast or crew. Non-theater folk have a tendency to ruin the sets, and they can't let that happen on opening night. "But I'm already here." Finn points out as he stoops down to kiss her again. Rachel gives in for a moment, but quickly recovers and tries to push his large frame toward the door, telling him exactly what the director would do if he found him, a civilian, backstage. She's seen others receive the punishment and she wouldn't wish that on that scumbag Jesse St. James, let alone on Finn. But of course, he refuses to budge and Rachel relents after he promises to stay behind the door so that no one can see him. He thinks that it would be better to be caught in the open than to be caught hiding behind a door like a creeper, but she insists, so he waits for her to tell him the coast is clear before the sneak outside. He tries to make it a spy game by somersaulting past a corridor, but gives up the act after knocking over a broom, eliciting a hiss of displeasure from Rachel. Still, she is unable to contain her laughter as they slip into the safety of the unrestricted parking lot.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's note: I don't know if anyone actually remembers this story. Sorry about the wait for those of you who do. Watching this season ruin these characters kind of killed my motivation to write for a while. But then I found this again and decided to finish it and post. It follows the plan I had for it before the season started, so we're just going to pretend it hasn't happened, okay? Enjoy!

Finn tells Rachel the truth about his tryst with Santana after they watch the Fourth of July fireworks, having snuck out of her family's Fourth of July barbecue. She's known all along, of course. He seemed a little too disappointed when she told him that she was never with Jesse in that way. This logic is met with the protest that he would never have felt disappointment that she didn't have sex with that jerkwad. Guilt, yes. Regret, yes. Anger, yes. A lot of anger, directed at himself, because he knew he was going to regret Santana and followed her into that stupid pay-by-the-hour hotel room anyway. So he lied to her and said he was waiting for the right person because that's what he wished he had done. "You must hate me." he says tentatively after a prolonged silence. "You know that's not true. I love you." she contradicts him without a second thought. She goes on to remind him that she's known all along and that she had no claim over him because they weren't together at the time. The same lines she's been repeating to herself since it happened. She is, however, more than a little disappointed that it's taken him this long to tell her about it. But she can't really blame him, this is the type of secret that could potentially ruin a relationship. Just not theirs, she reassures him with a grin. He doesn't register any of it, though, because he's just heard the three words he's been waiting for all summer.

"She is singlehandedly ruining everything I've spent the last two years building!" Rachel rants to Finn after a particularly bad glee club practice. The 'she' that Rachel refers to is a freshman who joined just joined the club, a month late, she might add, and has done nothing but try to force her ideas onto everyone in sight. "Come on, she's not that bad." Finn tries to reason with his girlfriend. She spent the first three weeks of rehearsals complaining that the other girls weren't carrying their weight. Then the girl in question showed up out of the blue and wowed everyone with a rendition of "Memory." Rachel had been more than happy to welcome the other girl into the club when she was just a promising new performer. Now it was clear that the younger girl had her sights set on Rachel's throne as the queen of the glee club. Rachel will admit that the younger girl is talented, but is always sure to qualify the statement with the idea that she is also young and unpracticed. This unbridled, natural talent, when paired with the ingénue's budding relationships with seemingly everyone else in the club, makes her the first legitimate threat to Rachel's throne. Finn tries to diffuse the situation with a joke about how the new girl's behaviors are reminiscent of Rachel's the previous year, but the point in this line of conversation is lost when he feels the need to assure her that of course the new girl is worse than Rachel ever was. At this point, Finn has to focus getting himself back in her good graces, so he tells her that if she were anybody else, he never would have fallen for her, and they can't have that, now can they?

The morning of Burt and Carol's would-be wedding, Rachel arrives at their house to find the catering staff packing up their vans. After a quick search of the eerily quiet home, she finds Finn in his new bedroom, pacing. When she asks what's wrong, all he can say is "It's all my fault." Before he offers any further explanation, Rachel counters with, "I think that's an egotistical thing to say." After she stops to explain what egotistical means, she argues that he was only one of many considerations that they took when they decided to postpone the wedding. This prompts Finn to ask why, if that's the case, did they make the decision to cancel it only when they found Finn and Kurt arguing over their cummerbunds. Rachel uses this slightly amusing piece of information to remind Finn that it takes a lot more than a cummerbund to postpone a wedding. The fight he just had with Kurt might have been the last straw, but there had to have been other reasons. Trying to put a positive spin on things, she points out that if the two of them were fighting like brothers, then they must already be a family. Brothers fight, brothers make up. This fight will blow over, but Burt and Carol's love for one another won't. Besides, she just saw them making up rather passionately, so they're going to be fine, even if they aren't married today.

Finn had thought that the comical difference in his and Rachel's heights would be less of an issue when they were horizontal. He was terribly, terribly wrong. He's just too big and clumsy to fit comfortably on her bed, let alone move around without crushing her. "I'm sorry. I'm hurting you. Maybe I should stop." Finn whispers moments after he penetrates her. "_We_ are not stopping." Rachel hisses through clenched teeth. They have been trying to do this for far too long and she is not about to let him ruin it just because he's afraid of breaking her. They both agreed that they should take the physical part of their relationship slow at first, so they held off all summer. Then school started and they became so ridiculously busy with glee club and everything else that school entails that they were lucky just to get a few minutes alone together each day. So now they're on their winter break and finally have Rachel's house to themselves for a few precious hours and Finn wants to stop because he thinks he's hurting her? No, no, no. Not going to happen. It didn't really even hurt that much. Okay, it hurts more than she expected. But still, he's _Finn_. And she's _Rachel_. And together they're perfect. It's just too bad that Finn doesn't see it this way. When they finish, he's miserable because he knows he hurt her. He heard that gasp of pain that she tried so hard to hold in and it nearly killed him. But her sigh of contentment as she curls up against him is enough to ease his mind, at least for now.

"You know, you're really starting to make me wonder why I joined glee in the first place!" Finn yelled, frustrated with himself for not reaching his notes on an especially difficult song, and with Rachel for insisting that he do. "Don't you dare talk to me like that!" Rachel protests. It's not her fault that, once again, he's bitten off more than he can chew and has chosen glee club as the activity that gets to suffer. They've been working on this song for two weeks now and he's supposed to have been doing vocal exercises to improve his range, but clearly he hasn't. She's tried to be sympathetic to his situation because he really does have a lot to juggle with glee club, school, basketball, his job at Sheets 'N Things (although he's all but quit now that the holiday rush is over), and the not-always-simple act of being her boyfriend. But now he's not only shirking his duties as co-captain of the glee club, but he's taking out his stress on her and that is not suitable behavior, boyfriend or not. Instead of waiting around to be berated once again for pushing him to be all she knows he can be, she calmly exits the room and heads outside. Only when she is safely in her car does she allow her tears to release the pressure that has been building for weeks now. After she's cried herself out, she looks up to find a note under her windshield wipers. When she opens it, she finds a star drawn in yellow marker around his simple, two-word apology. So she takes a minute to compose herself and wipe away the remnants of her tears, then returns to the choir room to continue their rehearsal.

"I don't believe it." Rachel gasps at the awards ceremony for the 2011 Midwest Regional Show Choir Competition. A year ago, they had just heard the news of their crushing defeat at the hands of Vocal Adrenaline. This time, New Directions were headed to Nationals and Vocal Adrenaline didn't even make it past Sectionals. It seems as though they aren't so talented without their precious star and unrelenting coach. "You'd better believe it because we did it! We're going to New York!" Finn exclaimed, taking her into his arms and spinning in a move that left them both staggering when it was over. After ten months of rehearsals and membership changes and fights, song substitutions and storm-outs, they were going to Nationals. Every strained rehearsal was worth it now because she was going to New York. To perform. On stage. So what if it was just for a high school show choir competition? She's still going and that's good enough for now. And tonight? Tonight, she's going to celebrate with her friends. After two grueling years, she is finally confident in her ability to call these people her friends and that makes everything about today so much better. Then after everyone else has gone home, she has every intention of sneaking out of her house and into Finn's bedroom to have a more private celebration-slash-thank-you-for-putting-up-with-me. Plans for Nationals can wait until tomorrow.


End file.
